The Story of Ethan Allen (1738-1789)

Chapter II

In the backwoods of the colonies, it was difficult to
acquire a decent education. What education usually meant
was reading books, pamphlets, and newspapers if there were
any. This, of course, was possible only if the settler knew
how to read. Allen not only learned how to read but also
get into trouble.

* * *

Ethan Allen was born on January 21, 1738 in the town of
Litchfield, Connecticut, to Joseph and Mary Allen.(11)
Ethan
was the oldest of the eight children. He was the only one
to be born in Litchfield, since the family moved to Cornwall
shortly after his birth. (12) After realizing Ethan's
desire to
read, his father sent him to Reverend Jonathan Lee of
Salisbury, Connecticut, to help him prepare for Yale.(13)
Shortly afterwards, in April of 1755, Joseph Allen died,
leaving Ethan to take care of the family farm.(14) In 1757,
Ethan enlisted in the militia to fight in the French and
Indian War, but he did not see any action. (15) When he
returned home, he went to Salisbury, Connecticut, and built
the blast furnace that still stands there today.(16) When he
was twenty-four years old, Allen married thirty year old
Mary Brownson, who was the daughter of a miller in Woodbury
that Ethan moved grain for.(17)

It was in the town of Salisbury where Ethan Allen
learned of one of the hottest political ideologies of the
colonies: republicanism. (18) Republicanism was the belief
that man was entitled to life, liberty, and property.
Today, these three rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness. It is the responsibility of the United
States government to provide us with those three rights.
Revolutionary Republicanism, as it pertained to the American
Colonies, originated in England. Before 1763, the "Country"
party in England was represented by Whig writers.(19) They
believed themselves to be the guardians of the true
principles of the English constitution.(20) They also opposed
the "Court" party which was the King and his appointees.(21)

In 1763, the King's ministers began a new program of
discipline. The Country party saw it attacking "traditional
English liberties": balanced government, representative
rights, and disestablishment of standing armies in
peacetime. The Stamp act was the beginning of these
attacks. The Americans believed their resistance to these
attacks was justified.(22)

John Adams believed Revolutionary Republicanism to be a
resistance to authority that did not allow equal
representation in government. It was also the ideology that
demanded life, liberty, and property. Adams wrote of the
"conspiracy against the public liberty [that] was first
regularly formed and begun to be executed in 1763 and
1764".(23) New trade policies threatened the property of
merchants. These were threats against "lives, liberties,
and property."(24) Since the amount of property one owned
determined political influence and even citizenship, a
threat against the former was a threat against the latter.
It was for this reason that residents of Connecticut and
Massachusettes migrated to the New Hampshire Grants where
land was abundant and cheap. Not only could the existing
generations have land, but generations to come would have
land to inherit.

John Adams furthered his definition of Revolutionary
Republicanism by describing how it is more important to
those living in rural areas. In agrarian society, a more
equitable distribution of ownership is the prerequisite to
economic growth. It is precisely for this reason that the
tensions of the countryside are potentially so much more
revolutionary than those of the city. The industrial worker
cannot secure personal ownership or control the means of
production; this, however, is precisely the goal of the
peasant. The basic factor of production is land; the supply
of land is limited if not fixed; the landlord loses what the
peasant acquires. Thus the peasant...has no alternative but
to attack the existing system of ownership and control."(25)
Those settlers living in the Grants sought not to "attack"
their "existing system of ownership and control". They
simply wanted to have their own state to preserve their
right to land.

Thomas Paine wrote of republican ideas in a very
radical way and in a style understood by the common man. He
called for the ending of hereditary privilege and
concentrated power in colonial social structure. The
thousands who read his pamphlet Common Sense
(1776) came to
believe that not only could power be taken from England but
they could also form a "new social and political order" in
North America. This new social and political order means
redistribution of wealth and political power from the
"haves" to the "have nots". (26)

Salisbury was a very small town during the time Ethan
Allen lived there Thomas Young M.D., was a formally
educated resident of Salisbury.(27) This was the same Thomas
Young that would later play an influential role in the
American Revolution in Philadelphia He owned books by the
theologians Thomas Hobbes and John Locke which he shared and
discussed with Ethan.(28) Thomas Hobbes believed that humans
were not worthy to govern themselves. A ruler should have
all powers of government invested in him in exchange for
keeping the peace amongst the people. John Locke, on the
other hand, believed in the people's ability to govern. In
addition, people had certain unalienable rights: life,
liberty, and property. These three unalienable rights were
the core of Revolutionary Republicanism. As mentioned
before, liberty in the colonies depended on the owning of
property. This property came in the form of land in the
country. Locke continued that if the government provided
individual protection of these rights from the whole, the
people would act reasonably toward the government. If the
government breaks the contract to protect those three
rights, the people can revolt and form a new government. It
was this kind of enlightened republican thinking that Hobbes
and Locke put into not only Ethan Allen's head, but many
middle class revolutionaries around the world.

It was not just republican ideology that Ethan
discussed with Thomas Young. In 1764 ingrafting, or
transporting tissue infected with the smallpox virus to a
body not infected, was a new way of curing the disease.
Ingrafting was considered a heresy by New England clergy and
punishable by law, if not conducted with the consent of the
town selectman. Allen insisted that Dr. Young inject him
with the virus on the Salisbury meeting house steps to prove
whether or not ingrafting worked. They did this on a
Sunday. Allen did not suffer from the virus, but the news
of what they did spread quickly in Salisbury. after being
hauled into court, Ethan was threatened to be prosecuted by
Rev. Johnathan Lee and one Stoddard. Allen made his own
defense stating "By Jesus Christ, I wish I may be Bound Down
in Hell with old Belzabub a Thousand years in the Lowest
Pitt in Hell and that Every Little Insippid Devil should
come along by and ask the Reason of Allens Lying there, (if)
it Should be said (that) he made a promise...that he would
have satisfaction of Lee and Stoddard and Did Not fulfill
it." Since spoken by a deist in a court of law surrounded
by Calvinists, this outrageous passage probably left the
court in awe.(29)

Ethan would find himself in more trouble in October of
1765. Ethan and his brother Heman sold their interest in
the Salisbury blast furnace, which they built, and then sold
their interest in it to George Caldwell. Ethan expected
more cash up front from Caldwell and there was a
disagreement over the terms of the sale. The court records
state that "Ethan Allen did, in a tumultuous and offensive
manner, with threatening words and angry looks, strip
himself even to his naked body, and with force and arms,
without law or right, did assail and actually strike the
person of George Caldwell of Salisbury, aforesaid, in the
presence and to the disturbance of His Majesty's good
subjects." (*) Allen was fined ten shillings.(31)

At the end of 1769, Ethan's sister Lydia became ill.
The entire Allen family went to her home in Goshen,
Connecticut, with doctors and medicine. To no avail, she
died in 1770. Ethan's mother then had a stroke and Ethan
literally carried her back to Salisbury. Ethan's previous
dealings in a lead mine in Northhampton after leaving
Salisbury were a failure. He was kicked out of the town.
Still without any kind of steady income or even a job, and
family members becoming ill, the world seemed to be
collapsing around him.(32)